Ninja Reportedly Declined 470 Crore-Worth Contract With Facebook

Rumor has it that Ninja, a famous Fortnite player, declined a deal worth of Rs 470 crore (60 million USD) offered by Facebook to stream on their platform. At first, it was uncertain why he said no to such a sweet deal but now we have SypherPK, a fellow streamer of his, to shed some light on this matter.

Facebook Offers Rs 470 Crore To Ninja

The reason Facebook offered him this huge deal is that Ninja used to have an exclusive contract with Mixer to stream on their platform. So when Facebook bought Mixer, it is legally obliged to purchase the platform’s contracts with streamers, otherwise, Mixer would have to pay the contracts in full.

Ninja Mixer deal — Facebook has the legal obligation to buy all contracts Mixer has with streamers

As Ninja refused the deal with Facebook Gaming, Mixer has no other choice but to pay out Rs 235 crore upfront.

Why He Declined Such A Deal?

When Ninja declined the deal, most people thought he did so because he wanted to get the contract’s payout early. Rs 235 crore is a big sum of money so the idea of having it earlier rather than later seemed appealing.

However, that explanation doesn’t fully satisfy. Ninja is a streamer and streaming is what he does regardless of having a contract or not. And if he went ahead with the deal, he would have Rs 470 crore after a year.

Ninja streams facebook deal — Ninja will stream regardless of exclusive deals or not

SypherPK’s Explanation

According to SypherPK, the reason why Ninja and his team refused Rs 470 crore was the potential damage the deal could bring to their brand.

When he switched to using Mixer, his reputation and brand name had taken a big hit so he might not want to suffer the same damage again.

Ninja Mixer switch — When Ninja first switched to Twitch, his brand took a big hit

Rs 470 crore is a large sum of money but with a damaged reputation, he might not be able to ink similar deals in the future. So if this is true, Ninja’s decision is entirely driven by business reasons - refusing Rs 470 crore to have the leverage for bigger deals.

What Can We Speculate From This?

After declining the deal, Ninja resumed streaming on YouTube and we can assume that he is building his brand while looking for a hefty exclusive deal.

As YouTube is the gathering place of the Fortnite community, it comes as no surprise that he picks this platform.

However, we have reason to believe he wants an exclusive deal with Twitch. Despite fierce competition from other newer streaming platforms, Twitch is still the go-to place for streamers to build up and strengthen their brands.

Ninja refuse Facebook seek contract with twitch — We have reason to believe Ninja is seeking an exclusive deal with Twitch

Twitch also has a special meaning for him as this was where he started with Fortnite. So while he has not had an exclusive deal with the platform, he will continue to stream on YouTube as it’s highly unlikely Twitch will be interested in such a deal if he’s already on the platform.

So an exclusive deal serves two purposes, one, Twitch can make sure that its competitor will not have Ninja, and two, Twitch will have his talent all for itself.